Beaufort’s $70M budget: The dope on taxes, salaries, garbage bills and spending
After months of push and pull between City Manager Scott Marshall and his staff and members of the City Council, council members approved a $70 million budget Tuesday.
Here’s five pocketbook and public safety highlights:
- No tax rate increase.
- The $270 annual garbage fee will stay the same.
- Two new cops, seven replacement police vehicles and three new vehicles.
- Employees will get 2% cost-of-living increases and could get 2% merit pay increases.
- The city is absorbing an additional 3% in health insurance costs.
The pay and health insurance increases in the budget emphasize the city’s commitment to retaining and recruiting top employees, Marshall said.
The police department spending reflects that public safety is “the highest of priorities,” he said.
Spending plans
Of the $70 million, $24.4 million will be spent on 16 capital improvement projects to parks, stormwater and streets.
Here’s a sampling:
- Among the most significant capital projects to receive funding in this year’s budget is the replacement of the promenade at Henry C. Chambers Waterfront Park. Its concrete pillars are failing. The city must replace the promenade at an estimated cost of $66 million. The budget includes $925,000 for the initial work.
- The capital budget also includes $2 million to advance the long-awaited next phase of the Duke Street improvements residents have been demanding for years. In 2012, developers reclaimed a derelict two-block stretch in Beaufort’s famed historic district bounded by Bladen, Duke, Prince and Adventure streets. The redevelopment project, called MidTown Square, received rave reviews locally and nationally. But residents who live along one stretch of that development — the 1600 block of Duke Street — never got the sidewalks, streetlights, parking and tree plantings the city promised to complete in conjunction with the private investment.
- .The budget sets aside funds for more stormwater work. The Charles/Craven Street drainage project ($8,912,679) and King Street drainage ($8,854,314) will continue.
- The city will fund rehabbing of the walls at one of its most famous structures, the Arsenal, for $240,000. The 1798 brick and tabby military facility downtown originally served as the headquarters for the Beaufort Volunteer Artillery. Another $200,000 is set aside for the Arsenal windows.
Not all smooth sailing
There were bumps in the road in reaching the final budget.
Marshall originally proposed an additional $32 per vehicle fee owners would have to pay when they register their cars. It was controversial, and the City Council ultimately rejected it. But that left a $322,560 revenue shortfall. City staff had to scramble to make it up.
The city had hoped to use $1.2 million from a tax increment financing fund for the work at Waterfront Park as well.
But when it reviewed whether the remaining TIF II funds could be used to support the work, the city received legal guidance that any unspent money must be returned to the taxing bodies that originally contributed to it because the TIF district expired in 2019.
Marshall said the city has asked the both the school district and the county if it could retain the funds it contributed to the TIF fund for use at Waterfront Park.
Funding for ‘strategic partners’
The city also gave more than $1 million to groups or agencies it calls its “strategic partners.” One example is $42,000 for the Beaufort County Economic Development Corp. Another is $45,000 for the South Coast Cyber Center.
These donations are getting closer scrutiny particularly as the city looks for every scrap of funding it can find to fix the promenade, its No. 1 priority.
Councilman Josh Scallate said he wants to see some changes in this area. Going forward, he says, the city should reach agreements that allow it to fund important initiatives, but not forever.
“Agreements would establish initiatives for a certain amount of time until it can become self-reliant, and we can exit without this commitment year over year continuing to fund the same thing with no exit strategy for the city,” Scallate said. “It would allow for more predictability not just for us but for our partners.”
Bouquet and brickbat
Property owner and developer Graham Trask, who frequently tangles with the city over the budget and other issues, was the only person to comment on the budget before it was approved Tuesday.
He said he was “shocked — but pleasantly so” that taxes are not being raised.
He questioned the city on the loss of TIF II funds. “What happened?” he said.
He also questioned why the city plans to spend $800,000 to renovate a fire station at least in part to accommodate a new fire truck with a taller ladder. “And the waterfront is falling into the Beaufort River,” he said.
Here are some other miscellaneous items in the budget:
- The city is creating $1,000 annual short-term rental license fee that will generate $269,000.
- A $125,000 remodel of the Tick Tok Park playground on North Street, and a $1.5 million Pigeon Point boat landing reconstruction, went unfunded.
- $150,000 is included in the budget for the Housing Repair Assistance program, a 50% increase.
This story was originally published June 10, 2026 at 1:23 PM.
